wheel nuts

Hi carlj
I would put most of those accident were the wheel comes off down to human error, ie the person who changed the wheel has been in a hurry changing a flat or doing service work and forgotten to tighten the wheel nuts after lowering the jack.
Not me, but have known of it happening.

If you are worried about them tighten them up to the manufactures specs with a tension wrench. to get a feel of how tight they should be.
And check them occasionally or daily after or driving corrugated roads.

Rob

Most definitely and van wheels have different tension to car wheels and mag wheels are different to steel wheels

Thats what handbooks are for and yes a torque wrench is the way to go after reading what the handbook says.
I use a 12 volt wrench to spin the nuts up and then tighten them with the torque wrench.

You can snap a stud if its too tight. Old 1980's Telstars were famous for breaking studs as they had fine threads and could cross thread and jam easily.
Then you couldnt get them off.
Had it happened to me and to get the hub off to replace them it stuffed the bearing as well so was quite expensive.

No it wasnt me who did them up.

Gday...

It is not unusual for wheel nuts, particularly on trailers (caravans) without suspension (shockers etc), to work loose over rough roads - eg corrugations.

It is always wise to torque nuts up ... and then to check them after 100km of travel - definitely if on rough roads - bitumen as well as dirt. This is definitely so after changing a wheel.

I always check my wheel nuts, and tyre pressures, at least every 2nd day if I am travelling. Just like checking the tug.

I have taught my billy lids every car/trailer needs POWER at least every week - check Petrol (fuel), Oil, Water, Elecrrics (lights), and Rubber (pressure and damage). Saves lots of hassles if you always know what everything is doing.

Yep ... I'm a pedantic fussy ole bugger.

Cheers and happy travelling
John

had my teenage trainee tyre fitter change wheels for me on the cruiser before heading off on a trip. A few ks in realized that all was not well. Checked to find that he had put the nuts on back to front.

He had only been in training for a couple of weeks... but what a worry!

He learned a lesson that night and became a very conscientious fitter and now big machine operator.

yes you most certainally can over tighten them, there are some components on some motors like head bolts that can safely be used only once as the strain of being tensioned up twice will lead to failure ..........
I always use oil on the threads and contact surface, metal to metal can bind when dry and appear to be tight but will not hold tension, you can not really expect to get a correct tension on any nuts if you do it dry as it will bind ...
Many do not agree with using any lubes at all but it works, is safer and never has failed me .. check a "workshop manual" .... for almost any nuts/bolts that require tensioning it mostly says to lightly oil and then tension up...
Cheers
Joe

Just dont have paint under them especially on duals.

We had 22 new rims delivered for the buses and the boss spent a couple of days scraping the paint off where the nuts would go on the rims.

Also had this pointed out to me years ago by an old truck mechanic.

Found out the hard way when I got my wheels rotated in Cairns a few years ago.
Had a Berlina with mags which fitted tight on the hub.

Next day getting down the road at 100kph could hear knocking coming from the rear.
Pulled over after a while and couldnt see anything but jacked it up anyway.
The fitter hadnt put one wheel on square and it had jammed on the hub.

Then it worked loose.
Lucky I stopped or maybe would ahve been serious problem when it fell off LOL.

Now I watch to see what they do or do it myself.


For the OP Coromal advise 120nm for the van wheels and I think Toyota Cruisers are 150NM

Many, many years ago, it was flogged into me, that the most important part of any vehicle was the "Nut" on the wheel :~)

In 2010 I broke a stud on my 80 Series Landcruiser by over tightening the wheel nuts on the factory fitted alloy rims I run with . At the time I was tightening them up to 100ft lbs. (135.5817948331888 Newton meters apparently). Upon replacing the broken stud and also replacing the rest, I decided to check the service manual to find they said 70 ft lbs(94.90725638323217NM). This hardly seemed tight enough for me but I complied. I then took to carrying my tension wrench with me and regularly checking the wheel nuts. Especially after travelling corrugated roads. They never budged once.

I next moved onto the the alloy rims of my caravan. I got some pretty stupid responses from the chassis maker and no response from other so called experts on how tight the wheel nuts should be on my caravan so after some advice from a caravanning forum where it was suggested I should tighten up to 65 ft lbs I did that.

I've now travelled about 20,000km with the caravan and I suppose I check the wheel nuts every two days or so when travelling. I've not noticed any loosening off of the wheel nuts but I got suspicious once or twice where I thought there may have been a couple of ft lbs of loosening.

WBS